The Influence of Ethical Practice on Cost Performance of Multifarious Infrastructure Projects in Nigeria.

Abstract

Unethical practice (unEP) involving fraudulent activities, nonprofessional conducts and corrupt practices have been symbolized as a worldwide phenomenon within the construction industry. Its prevalent, whose effect can run to serious cost overruns have also been reported to be on the increased. Other attendance consequences include disruption of delivery of good quality infrastructure and untimely completion of projects. Despite these problems, little attention has been placed to determine the significant effect of unethical practice on cost performance. This paper aimed at identifying the relative significant influence of pre and post contract ethical practices (EP) on cost performance of MIPs in Nigeria. A total of 289 valid quantitativedata was collected from key informants within the construction organizations using a purposive non-probability sampling technique. Partial lease square structural equation modeling (SEM) was applied in the analysis of the data and testing of the hypotheses. On the final note, the results suggest that both pre- and post-contract EP have significant direct effect on CP. This explained 68% variation in the project cost performance while the remaining 32% is explained by the variables or other aspects outside the model. The findings of this paper will be beneficial to academics and practitioners in the field of project management in Nigeria especially where cost performance improvement is essential.